Method of and apparatus for finishing the edges of sheet material



Oct. 2,-1923. 1,469,255

' N. v. DYER METHOD OF AND APPARATUS FOR FINISHING THE EDGES Oi SHEET MATERIAL Filed May 14. 1920 1 0 I I z .2

20 by skiving and folding them, or

Patented ELL V. DYEB, OF HOLBROOK, MASSACHUSETTS, ASSIGNOB '10 UNITED SHOE CORPO TION, OF PATERSON, NEW JERSEY, A: CORPORATION OF NEW METHOD AND AFPAT'US FOR FINISHING THE EDGES OF SEE '1 MATERIAL.

Application filed. May 1%, 1920. Serial No. 381,396.

To all whom it mag concern:

Be it known that I, NEW'ELL V. DYER, a citizen of theUnited States, residing at Holbrook in the county of Norfolk and a State of Massachusetts, have invented certain Improvements in Methods of and Apparatus for Finishing the Edges of Sheet Material, of which the following description, in connection with the accompanying drawings, is a specification, like reference characters on the drawings indicating like parts in the several figures.

This invention relates to the finishing of the edge of a piece of material and is herein described as embodied in the finishing of a raw edge of apiece of leather designed for use in the manufacture of an upper of a boot or shoe;

Although such edges are usually finished y a shrinking agent such asheat, it has been proposed to burnish them. The latter method is commonly carried out by using a rotary or oscillating burnishing tool having a groove in its periphery which receives the edge and rounds the corners thereof both on the flesh and on the grain side. Thus far, so far as I am aware, this latter method has not produced satisfactory results on such leather as is commonly used in making the uppers of boots and shoes. One object of finishing the edge of a part of an upper is to permit the part, the edge of which is finished, to be overlapped upon and attached to another part with the finished edge drawn tightly down upon that other part. For example, the tip of the shoe is commonly overlapped upon the vamp and stitched thereto, the exposed edge 40 of the tip being drawn down tightly upon the vamp." If it cannot be so drawn it will produce an undesirable appearance for that reason; and if it is not properly finlshed it 'will not be satisfactory because more or less of the raw edge will appear. Burnishing as hitherto'practised has not produced satisfactory results; first, because it has not been practicable to support and hold firmly during the burnishing operation the edges of the relatively thin and flexible leather of which most uppers are made and second, because in the case of heavier leather, the

edge of which can be more or less satisfactorily burnished, the resultant edge is liable to be too thick and too uneven.

. According to the present invention the edge is burnished by rubbing it from one .side toward the other, preferably by rubbing it from the grain side toward the flesh side, as distinguished from rubbing it in the direction of its length. In operating in this manner it is possible. to hold the edge of a piece of leather firmly during the burnishing operation, this firm holding being particularly advantageous over the old method in the case of relativelythin and flexible leathers since it permits the burnishing to be done more thoroughly. Another advantage which results from this rubbing of the edge in a direction from one side of the leather toward the other is that the rubbing may be caused to take place from the grain ide toward'the flesh side, thereby rounding the corner on the grain side and producing a more leasing effect. In addition to the burnis ing operation, the edge is preferably treated with stain or other finishing substance to improve its a pearance.

The burnishing of the edge in the manner described above tends to produce a fin on the side toward which the rubbing is done, this usually being the flesh side. In order to remove this fin which may have been rolled up, as well as to thin the ed e if desired, and in any event to provi e a fiat it surface to contact uniformly with the part of the upper upon which the piece having the finished edge is subsequently to be superposed and towhich it is to be stitched or otherwise fastened,- the margin of the piece is preferably skived.

Referring now to the accompanying drawings,

Fig. 1 is a perspective of a portion of a.

Wis

Fig. 5 is aperspective of the same fragment as it may appear after the skiving operation, and

Fig. 6 isa perspective showing-a piece of work with its edge finished, said piece being overlapped upon and stitched to a part of the upper of a boot or shoe.

The machine herein shown is similar in many respects to that shown and described in the patent toAlexander No. 1,180,222. Like the machine of the patent, it is provided with a. feed roll 7, a skiving knife 9 and a resser-foot 11 having formed as part of it an edge gage 13. The machine may also be? provided with a feed disk (notshown) like that of the patent which cooperates with the cylindrical portion 15 of the feed roll to feed the work 100. The parts of the machine which have been described, with the exception of a certain detail of the feed roll presently to be described, are or may be like those of the patented machine. It will be understood that the machine is of the well-known Amazes-n type in which the work is fed beneath the presserfoot 11 with its edge 'in contact with the gage 13 to the rotary knife 9, the inclination of which determines the angle of the bevel or skive produced on the edge of the work.

In order to apply-finishing substance, such as stain, to the edge of the work a sponge 17 is carried at the end of a pipe 19 which leads from a suitable reservoir (not shown), the sponge being in position to engage the edge of the work in advance of the edge gage 13. After the edge has been stained, the next stepis to burnish it; and to this end the inner or right-hand end of the feed roll 7 has an overhanging portion, as shown in Fig. 2, to permit a burnishing wheel 21 to operate upon the work. 'This burnishing wheel is mounted upon a shaft 23 which rotates in suitable bearings in the frame of the machine and is rotated in the direction indicated by the arrow'in Fig. 2 by a belt 24 which passes around a grooved portion of the knife shaft 25 over idle pulleys 27 and around a pulley 29 which is fast to the shaft 23. The operative portion 111 of the presser-foot 11 bears upon the upper or flesh side of the work which is so guided by the edge gage 13 that its edge slightly overhangs the edge of the roll 7 The eflect, therefore, of the burnishing wheel 23 is to round the corner of the edge of the work on the grain side and to cause the grain side to curl more or less toward the flesh side. In many cases this will produce a slight projection or fin 200 on the flesh side of the work somewhat as shown on an enlarged scale in Figs. 4 and 5. The work is then acted upon by the knife in the manner illustrated in Fig. 3 to have its margin skived on the fiesh side, the fin, if it exists, being 1 thereby removed and the edge thinned and reduced to a uniform thickness, the condition of the work after this operation being indicated in Fig. 5 in which the skived margin is shown at 300. in Figs. 4, 5 and 6 the dots are intended to indicate grain surface as distinguished from flesh; and it will be seen that the finished edge is partly grain surface but mostly stained and burnished flesh surface. It should beunderstood, however, that the extent to which the grain surface is curled toward the fleshsurface varice with difl'erent pieces of leather and that the illustrations are intended to cover merely a selected illustrative case.

Referring now to Fig. 6, a fragment of the piece of work 100 is shown fastened in the usual manner by two rows of stitches 31 to another piece 400 which it overlaps, the surface 300 having been drawn down into intimate contact with the upper side of the piece 400 so that no gap is produced along the visible line of junction of'the pieces. Moreover, since the edge was reduced to a uniform thickness it now presents no unevenness.

By performing the burnishing operation in the manner described it is possible to operate satisfactorily upon much thinner and more flexible leather than has been possible with prior methods since the action of the burnishing tool is at right angles to the plane of the work and only a small portion of the work need be supported. With thicker work, the burnishing may, of course, be done with equal or greater facility and in this case the skiving of the edge to a uniform desired thickness is of particular advantage.

Having thus described my invention, what I claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent of the United States is:

1. The method of finishing the edge of a piece of material which comprises burnishing the edge by rubbing it in a direction from one side toward the other side of the piece. A

2. The method of finishing the edge of a piece of material which comprises applying a finishing substance to the edge and hurnishing the edge by rubbing it from one side toward the other side of the piece.

3. The method of finishing the edge of a piece of upper leather to prepare it to he lapped over another piece and stitched to said piece in the manufacture of the upper of a shoe which comprises applying a finishing substance to the edge of the first-named piece, then burnishing the edge, and finally removing stock from the margin of the flesh side in such manner as to produce a flat sur face and an edge of uniform thickness.

1'. The method of finishing the edge of a piece of upper leather to prepareit to he apped over another piece and stitched to said piece in the manufacture of the upper aaeaaee' of a'shoe which comprises burnishing the edge and then removing stock from the margin of the flesh side in. such manner as to produce a flat surface and an edge of uni-v form thickness.

5. The method of finishing the edge of a piece of leather which comprises applying coloring matter to the edge of the piece, working the grain side along the edge over toward the flesh side and then reducing the 'edge to a uniform) thicknes.

6. The method of finishing the edge of a piece of leather which comprises applying coloring matter to the edge of the piece, working the grain side along the edge over toward the flesh side and then skiving the margin alon the edge on the flesh side to reduce the e ge to.a uniform thickness.

7. The method of finishing the edge of a piece of upper leather which comp-rises applying coloring matter to the edge of the piece, burnishing the colored edge and then reducing the colored and burnished edge to a uniform thickness. a g

8. The method of finishing the edge of a piece of upper leather which. comprises applying coloring matter to the edge of the piece, burnishing the colored edge and then skiving the margin of the flesh side'along the colored and burnished edge to reduce it to a uniform thickness.

9. The method of finishing the edge of a piece of leather which comprises applying coloring matter to the edge, feeding the leather over a support with the grain side of the leather in contact with the support and slightly overhanging the edge of the support, burnishing the colored edge by wiping it from the grain side toward the flesh side of the piece, and subsequently evening the margin by operating upon the flesh side thereof.

10. A machine for finishing the edge of-a piece'of stock having, in combination, means for feeding the piece, a'burnishin tool, and means for causing the operative ace of the tool to rub the edge in a direction transverse to the lengthof said edge.

11. A machine for finishing the edge of a piece of stockhaving, in combination, a support for the piece, means for guiding the piece with its edge overhanging the support, a presser for holding the piece against the support, a burnishing tool arranged to contact with the overhanging edge, and means for operating the tool to cause it to move across the edge. 7

12. A method of finishing the edge of a piece of leather which comprises applying coloring material to the edge and burnishing the edge by rubbbing it in a direction from one side toward the other side of the piece.

13. A machine of the class described, having in combination, a skiving knife, means for feeding a piece of stock to the knife, means located to contact with the edge of the stock in advance of the knife for burnishing the edge of the stock, and means located to contact with the edge of the stock in advance of the burnishing means for applying a finishing substance to the edge.

14. A machine of the class described, having .in combination, a. rotary disk knife, a feed roll for advancing a piece of stock to the knife, a presser for holding the stock against the roll in front of the knife, a rotary tool adapted to burnish the edge of the stock in the locality engaged b the presser, and means for applying co oring matter to the edge of the stock before it reaches the burnishing tool.

In testimony whereof I have signed my name to this specification.

NEWELL V. DYER. 

